Stripes
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: I guess there was a little thing we never noticed about the car.


**A/N: Wow, guess what else happened to me? Miserably enough, between bio and Spanish, It's bringing back all this miserable stuff I loved about Kevin. Gosh, I can't take this much longer. Got an hour 'til tonight's episode. Let's hope Kevin'll make it through.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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**Stripes**

I guess there was a little thing we never noticed about the car. Ben and I had managed to bring ourselves to the garage to pick the place up a bit, just enough so that we held some shrivel of hope for our lost comrade. He was still gone. None of us knew where he was. I wasn't about to ask and Ben wasn't about to check for me. If we got something, we got something. If we didn't, we didn't. That was how we were going to play it. Miserably and weakly. We didn't want to fight him. So we weren't going around looking for a fight.

I ran my fingers along the hood of the car, finding it cold against my fingertips, the engine dead for days now. Kevin hadn't been around to maintain the shape of the vehicle and neither Ben nor I had the will to even try to start it up without immediately feeling either guilty or pained by the memories the growling engine brought back to me.

Silence followed us as we just began to put away the tool, looking at the car with a pang of pain searing through us. It was written across Ben's face. I kept my anguish hidden, trying not to let him see how deeply the loss of my beloved boyfriend affected me.

Recently, without him, I hadn't been able to think straight. My mind was subjected to flying in a hundred different directions at any given second. I couldn't help but wish I were dead every time I came across another stranded memory of him. And seeing the car was driving me insane.

The car was his love, his one passion, the one thing he cared about more than anything else in the world. It was his home, his family, his symbol of freedom. That car was everything he ever needed.

My fingers traced the long black stripes that ran down the hood. I eyed the windshield, wishing his dark frame were sitting there, staring out at me with a devilish smile that read off his thoughts. I wished with all my heart that he were there.

But he wasn't. And for all we knew, he wasn't coming back either.

Pain ebbing away at my heart, threatening to break the slowly healing pieces, I carefully stared at the vehicle that had been the first thing I had ever known of the real Kevin Ethan Levin. My heart was tugged on by the longing for my boyfriend, but I still wouldn't let the inner pain flow outwards.

Ben was still on the other side of the garage, wiping grease from tools and putting them into the drawers of the tool chests where they belonged. I could see the loss glazing over his jade eyes and how badly he missed the dark teen that had become the older brother he never had.

I quietly stroked the car. My eyes were on the blower and then slowly working up to the black stripes on the sleek green hood. And I realized something. "Ben?" I asked softly, a timid touch to my voice. I sounded weak without the rock that I had once leaned on; Kevin was what was holding me together in the worst of times. I hardly talked anymore, too afraid that my voice would crack.

He turned, a tiny tear trail glittering on his cheek. It was as hard for him as it was for me. "Yeah?" he asked, wiping it away with the notion that it was grease. But we both knew it wasn't.

"The stripes…" I fingered the black lines that gave the car its true personality and gave it the look that no other car could ever have. The blower and the bright jade green and the tinted windows gave it everything, but the stripes made the whole vehicle stand out in a crowd.

I had gone to an auto show more than once with Kevin. It had been fun. We had actually had fun while playing around with cars. Which was something different for me. For Kevin, it was like giving a five-year-old a whole Easter basket full of Pixi-Sticks. For me, it was just amazing how great it really was. And I had doubted Kevin the whole time…

But when I looked at those cars, and when we got back to his, it struck me how much it really meant to him. He could have had any car he wanted, a pre-made one with a big fancy jaguar hood ornament on it. Or a nice Ferrari if it made him happy. But he wanted that Camaro more than he wanted life itself. It was his freedom, his soul. All the love he never gave me was put into that car. And I respected that. When his car was destroyed after the Highbreed attack, he went right back to his Chevy Camaro. All the weapons would start from scratch, but he would have his paint job and he would have the blower right on front.

"What about them?" asked Ben. He too had moved to the car, running his fingers over the shades of shimmering green.

"Look at them," I told him, still tracing the black, tears welling up in my eyes as I realized that Kevin had really believed he was a monster all along. The car was proof of it. Even when he hadn't been mutated or in a dangerous state, his car was always reading the number right there, what he really thought he was.

My cousin's jaw dropped as his eyes widened slightly; Ben stood in silence for the longest moment. "This whole time…" He stared at the car, just as I had for the longest time. "How did we miss that?"

I just shrugged, able to hold back my tears. "It… It's been there, this whole time." My throat closed up and I felt my heart go in a deep freeze, Kevin's car sitting there like it always had, another secret of his revealed.

"Eleven," he said. "He's always been Kevin Eleven." He stroked the car, a visible shudder running through his body.

The stripes read off his secret number, the one that scared everyone. We were always afraid he would go back to that. And now that I looked at it harder, he had always seen himself as Kevin Eleven. He had always been looking at himself as a monster. This whole time. And I had been missing it. "Eleven…" A single tear cascaded down my cheek. I wouldn't let any others fall. "I can't believe he's always thought he was that monster." I felt my heart thundering as I pulled my hand from the hood, folding my arms across my chest. "He's always been so calm about everything."

"We've all got our secrets," Ben reminded me, watching me carefully with caring eyes. "I guess that was one of his." My cousin began moving around the car, closer to me since he knew I needed him more than ever. He was my cousin, but he was also like my brother. With Ken not around, Ben was the closest thing I had.

I drank in a deep breath, the gasoline stench stinging my nose but also making me long for Kevin even more. "He's not a monster."

Ben carefully pulled me into a gentle hug, his eyes diverting from the car and into the open door that led to the outside world of Bellwood. "You can tell him that when we get him back, Gwen."

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**A/N: Done. Review please.**

**~Sky**


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